Thankful Teachers Giveaway

We have so much to be thankful for this year! First and foremost are  you wonderful people who have been so supportive in following us on social media, purchasing our products, and giving us such kind feedback.  Thank you!!  Thank you!!

TeachersPayTeachers has been awesome in sharing us on their Facebook page, blog, and newsletter!  To show how truly humbled, thankful, and blessed we feel, we are sharing something we are thankful for every day this week.  Also, we are giving away our really fun, BRAND NEW Thanksgiving party pack.  This handy little pack has everything you need to survive the dreaded madness of the Thanksgiving party and make it educational and enjoyable for all!  We are still in the process of creating this awesome resource, so stay tuned for more previews throughout the week.  Sign up for the giveaway below.

This pack includes our really fun Turkey Scoot.  A great math game to practice addition and subtraction to 10.

 It also includes our cornucopia cards from our Team25 sight words activity pack along with a craftivity and guide to a past and present feast.  PLUS, we are throwing in a $25 gift card because we are beyond excited about all you have done for us this year!

Pam used this center with her kiddos during reading groups today and it went great!  "They loved it and asked if they could play it again. I love that they thought they were playing a game:) First I gave out the cornucopia cards and had the students try to sound out their words."

 Then they started to build their words with the fruit pieces.

"The students pointed to the letters and sounded out each sound as they placed the cards down. I had been working with sound boxes so the students understood what I said when I told them that we were using the fruit letters like sound boxes to help sound out words. This center really helped them to sound out the sounds."

 "Later, I had the students match letters on our letter cards that our school system uses."

"We will also use the letters and make our own words tomorrow:)"


Day 1: We are thankful for students and the awesome things they say.  Here are some funny quotes from a daycare in Nebraska.  I'm sure you've had some doozies too.  Comment below to share your laughs with us!

Day 2: We are thankful for teachers and their contributions to our success as teachers, and of course, our sanity.  Brittany personally has learned much from teachers with more experience, and cried much with teachers she relied on at work.  When the two of us worked together, we had a huge support system in our prayer group at school.  That group of ladies and a gentleman got us through some difficult times and vice versa.  Pam is so thankful for all those cohorts who have been kind enough to share their great ideas with her as well as listening to her vent about administration and offering helpful thoughts about problem students that she's had.   What support systems are you thankful for amongst your coworkers?

Day 3:  We are thankful for veterans and the freedom they give us to live our lives and teach children.  This article is a twist on the traditional Veterans Day approach.  Not sure if we agree completely, but it does shed light on the reality that we as civilians know nothing of what these men have been through on the warfront, or sacrifice in their daily lives for that matter.  Whether or not you agree with our military, the fact that it is completely comprised of people who choose it means we don't have a draft.  We are not pulled from our families as part of a civic duty, but are permitted to sit securely stateside, blissfully unaware of what actually goes on.  This applies to other service workers who don't have a holiday as well: police, firemen, government agencies.  If for no other reason, thank a service worker for the sacrifice they make so that you don't have to.

To celebrate Veterans Day, we want to offer you this FREEBIE.  If you want a lesson idea, check it out HERE. Enjoy:)

Here is one of Pam's kiddos illustrating this fun free song:

Day 4: We are thankful for those "Aha!" moments in the classroom.  We think many teachers can agree that one of the most rewarding things about what we do is seeing the gleam in a child's eye when they "get it."  All of those long nights lesson planning, all the jumping around the classroom, making fools of ourselves become completely worth it in those few brief minutes as that triumphant smile spreads across a student's face.  What have been your most rewarding "Aha" moments in the classroom?

Day 5: We are thankful for those awesome parents that show us so much support throughout the year.  Their assistance in the classroom, and investment in the lives of their children makes our jobs

so much easier and more enjoyable.







Day 6: We are thankful for our wonderful families who have shown us so much support throughout our time as teacherpreneurs.  We have gone from eagerly watching our email inbox for our first sale to being blessed with multiple followers in our store and on social media.  Our families have sat through tireless nights as we pinned, posted, crafted, and sculpted our business over the years.

Day 7: We are so thankful for you awesome followers and all the support you've given us.  Your loyalty and kind words keep us going every day, working to give you more resources to benefit your students.  We feel so blessed to be able to use our creative passion to influence your classrooms and aim to continue bringing you great resources.  Know that you can reach out to us anytime to provide feedback.  Your thoughts and ideas are what help us improve continuously.  Thank you again!  And for those of you that don't win our giveaway, we would like to offer you a free product on our website.  Click HERE!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Images provided by Bigstockphoto.com

We are on TeachersPayTeachers FB page!

We are so excited! Our Word of the Day Calendar was posted on TeachersPayTeachers Facebook page today!

https://www.facebook.com/TeachersPayTeachers/photos/a.315937646873.182534.73502446873/10153996786631874/?type=3

Each calendar piece has a November word on it. 

This is a sample of the cut and paste student calendar. 

I use these words in a calendar center. My kiddos cut and paste the word of the day on their calendars and then write about the word in a calendar notebook.

Here are a few writing samples of using the words from our November Calendar: These words have helped my students stay on topic:)

They keep their calendars and calendar pieces in a folder. They also keep their Word of the Day books that can be purchased separately in their folders. They highlight the words in the little books. The words in these books can be sung to familiar tunes. Read more about the books by clicking on the picture below.

The kiddos highlight the calendar words in the books. They wanted to highlight journey because it was our October word. I just love that they remember words from last month:) This book is also sung to the tune of "Clementine."

We just created a brand new resource where we combined these November calendar words with our first Team 25 sight words in 5 November poems, fill in the blank/ABC order sheets, fun Thanksgiving activities and teacher guides! 50% off for the first 24 hours! Click on picture below to see more:

This is such great timing too!

I wanted to share the awesome connections that my kiddos have made as they find these words in other places.

After lunch, my students wait in the hall to go to the bathroom, so here they are sitting when this student says:

This word was on November 1, and this little guy, who is also one of my ELL students said, "Look Mrs. Beckner! This is our calendar word today. I just love words Mrs. Beckner-You were right, our words are everywhere!" How cool is that:) 

Well then my other students started pointing out words all through the hall.

This word was from October and the student said. "We had this word on our calendar when we talked about Christopher Columbus."

 This word was from our September Calendar.

 October Calendar

 These words were from our September Calendar and I just love that the kiddos are still remembering them!

 So, as y'all can see I am pretty excited about TPT sharing this calendar because I feel pretty passionate about it! Hope that y'all will try one of our calendars and you will see how excited your students get seeing their words in other places:)

Have a great weekend!!

Say Goodbye to "Ms. Susie Had a Steamboat"

So, we are all familiar with that popular hand game the kids play, right?  "Ms. Susie had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell.  Ms. Susie went to heaven, the steamboat went to..." and you know the rest.  It was popular back when I was a student and also had so many inappropriate words.  We have a solution to your problem!  This is a lesson on folk music, creative writing, and Veterans Day.

You can begin by asking the students about the Ms. Susie song and see who is familiar with it.  Follow up by telling them the earliest version of the song appears to have originated in the 1950s, with various iterations along the way.  Here is a brief synopsis of the song's origin:http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/miss_susie.  Being in its very nature a tune that has been passed around the schoolyard since the 1950s, and possibly earlier, "Ms. Susie had a Steamboat" is a folk song.  Mention that many folk songs have been borrowed and changed over the years.  For example, our own national anthem was based on a British folk tune.  We have written a piggy back song to the tune of Ms. Susie that teaches about our government and Veterans Day.  Click HERE to download the lyrics.  Encourage the students to see if they can learn the song and combine it with the hand motions they know.  If you are unfamiliar, here is the original:

Creative challenge:  See if your students can create a song based on a folk tune they know.  They can do this in groups or individually.

Hope you enjoyed our fun Friday activity.  Have a great weekend!

How to Be a Quality Teacher in 7 Letters or Less

Q-U-A-L-I-T-Y, Quality Teachers Do it Right!

We all want to be the best teachers we can be for our students.  One great way for us to do that is to lead by example.  We expect our students to behave a certain way and we can reinforce that by demonstrating it ourselves.  This post is inspired by our FREE song, Quality Students, that is available by clicking below:

We are Q, Quiet When We Need to Be: 

               

  

We like our students to be quiet so they can listen to the lesson, directions, or whatever else we need to communicate to them.  It is important as teachers that we give the same respect to our students.  When they speak, it is good not only to listen, but to empathize with them.  I know as an educator I am always tempted to offer solutions immediately.  If we ask more questions and seek to further understand our students, we will be more effective at fostering a positive learning environment, and promoting independence.  Which brings us to our next letter:

U, Understanding Toward Others:

So often we are exhausted with data collection, preparing for tests, lesson-planning, sitting in meetings, and other frustrating things that come with the job.  It's difficult sometimes not to be annoyed by some of the behaviors we encounter in the classroom.  It is good to remember, as we want students to be understanding toward one-another, we should model understanding toward our students.  For example, when you feel yourself getting heated at something a student is doing, take a deep, heavy breath and try to understand the student's point of view.  Are they bored, confused, frustrated, embarrassed, angry, or do they just want a little extra attention.  The more we seek to understand our students, the better we will be at helping them learn.

A, Awesome in EVERY Way:

We can't always be superheroes, but being awesome in our classrooms creates a positive learning environment for the students.  We want them to try their best, "achieve their potential," work to constantly improve.  It's only fair that we do the same.  There are many ways to do this.  There are all those great mandatory trainings we have to attend.  Also, there are a TON of great online resources with innovative ideas for the classroom.  Edutopia and Mindshift are a couple really great ones!  Most importantly, we want to always be striving in our classrooms, finding better ways to teach, understand, and foster lifetime learning.

L, We Love to Learn:

This goes hand-in-hand with the above paragraph.  The more we learn, the better we understand.  The better we understand, the more effectively we can teach.  We can learn more about the subject matter we're teaching by exploring current research.  We can learn more about how students learn in order to reach our students on multiple levels.  We can learn about new tools to use in the classroom that will maximize learning and retention.

I, We are all Important:

As you can see in this picture, we are important in the way we teach students, and we are important in the way we influence students.  Many of our students value our opinion, and look to us as a source of encouragement.  We are with them almost one-third of the day.  For some of our students, we may be the only positive adult in their lives.  The takeaway here is, you are important.  Whether you're having a good day or bad, feeling under-appreciated, underpaid, or undervalued, remember you are important.  We are all important parts of a...

T, Team Working Together:

We and our students are a team.  We work together to achieve the goal of teaching students and giving them the tools to reason, explore, empathize, and determine for themselves.  It's easy as adults for us to forget that kids are often smarter than we give them credit for.  We want them to succeed, and unintentionally cripple them.  The most important skill to ensure a team's success is communication.  We communicate with our students regarding our expectations and they communicate with us.  We work as a team to establish boundaries that ensure a positive classroom environment and encourage learning.  For example, rather than saying, we don't call each other names, we say "we want everyone to feel good about themselves in this classroom."  You can obviously differentiate the language based on the age group.  For older grades, I would encourage you to see what rules they come up with completely on their own.  They might surprise you.  Once you come up with a plan as a team, about how to promote success in the classroom, the students will feel personally responsible when implementing it, and may respond more genuinely when they violate one of the agreements brought forth by the plan.

Y, It's Up to You.  You Can Be a Quality Teacher Too!

Now that you've been presented with these ideas, you can choose to implement them or not.  Join the conversation.  Let us know what you think of our ideas, or share with us if you have more.  Our hashtag on Twitter is #STThrive to help students thrive in the classroom.  All we ask is that your comments be respectful.  As quality teachers, we love to learn :).

Have an awesome week!

Freaky Friday,November Activities $1 deal and our Fall SALE!

Well this is the last Friday in October and that means it is the last Freaky Friday! We hope y'all enjoyed these fun Fridays and that you got some great stuff! 

Today we are offering our brand new November Activities.  The cut and paste sentence order is based on our November Calendar Word of the Day words, and we have worked very hard to also include sight words. We added a typed list of the 25 sight words that are included.

Here are a few photos of our October Activities: I like how the students can manipulate the pieces so they can read the sentence to see if it is correct before they glue it. This little guy had it wrong and was able to correct it before he glued it.

Now he has it right!:) 

After they glue the sentence, they copy and illustrate it.

 Then I had the students highlight the words from the October Word of the Day Calendar.

 Last, they answered the bonus question on the back of their papers.

Here is our November Word of the Day Calendar, which is on sale!

Or y'all might want to check on our Growing November Bundle, which is also on SALE and includes all of this, as well as games and November books that are also songs! This bundle will continue to grow:)  We have all our Fall Activities on SALE!

We hope you enjoy Freaky Friday and have a fun, safe, and Happy Halloween!